How do you think the dawn of strong artificial intelligence would influence humanity?

We've been discussing consciousness in my philosophy class in collge lately and it got me thinking about consciousness in machines. How do you think conscious machines would change how we view ourselves and the world we live in?

If they could think like we do would they deserve human rights?Would selling them be akin to slavery?

Most Helpful Girl

This reminds me of a tv series its called humans! And they talk about how if robots had conscious they deserve right because they have feelings and suffer. I don't know but consiousess makes us different to everything else that why we are human or thats what i got from the show. Anyway I think if it has feeling it should be treated as a person. I wonder how got consciousness because we are just cells and organs put together like a machine! How did we get our mind to think a certain way. Anyhow, I wonder if we get to keep our conscious when we are dead! I sure hope so! lol

Most Helpful Guy

Anonymous

The most important question would be if the machine has consciousness or if you perceive it to have consciousness. How do you know the change is external and real?

If you believe a machine has achieved consciousness, what mechanism brought it about? Hardware? A reliable power source? Excellent programming? Will the consciousness survive a loss of power and resume once it's been reinstated or will it start over? How can anyone be sure some kind of machine consciousness doesn't already exist, but both machines and humans are unaware of the other's state?

Machine consciousness would be acquired differently than human consciousness no matter whose philosophy you believe. As such, it wouldn't be reasonable to establish "human" rights for them. It would also bring up interesting questions about whether consciousness is ever acquired naturally, especially if the machines themselves are unable to reproduce separate conscious entities like animals can. Even if they could create new independent entities, could a manufactured, inorganic consciousness be considered natural?

What Girls Said 4

strong AI as a philosophical position was simply that any computer could replicate consciousness, which is, ridiculous but was based on the principles of an idea called functionalism, which is the position that consciousness is simply a specific function. it's just an exercise in missing the point, like saying "having hands is simply saying that you can do a certain function." this is what the chinese room argument was positioned against.

actual artificial intelligence, assuming it could be achieved /without/ replicating consciousness, would be a mind boggling technological jump, and the number of things that could then be automated would be astronomical. if included with replicating consciousness, that's different - but not really something to worry about any time soon.

I can't say positive, since most human beings are not exactly saints. And in the future if an AI is possible, I hope whoever is responsible for them, requires them not to repeat the same mistakes humans made.

What Guys Said 10

We'd essentially be creating an alternate apex species on this planet. So the programming would be quite important, to say the least. (Humans were programmed quite poorly. Still waiting for that upgrade.)

The Three Laws of Robotics (which I imagine were mentioned in the classroom, and perhaps improved upon) would be necessary, at a minimum.

But to answer your question, it would be the biggest event in the history of the species. I see no evidence that we're prepared for it. It would likely reaffirm, more than anything else, that though man is a wolf to man, man is worse than a wolf to those it considers beneath man.

Yes, I think they should be afforded "human" rights, or rather we should redefine human rights to include self aware beings above a certain level of intelligenceYes, I think selling them would be akin to slavery.

I think a more important question would be what would the impact of artificial personality be? There's a sci-fi writer I read a lot called Robert Sawyer. He talks about artificial intelligence in his books. Much of the impact of artificial intelligence depends largely on the personality and temperament of the AI.

you never know. what if james cameron went back in time to make that movie to warn us and arnald schwarzenegger also went back in time and tried to use it as cover and is roaming the world now and waiting till it actually happens and the real thing unfolds? now that's fucking meta!